


one of these days

by orphan_account



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Gen, Identity Issues, Identity Reveal, Superhero Expiration Date
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-07
Updated: 2015-12-07
Packaged: 2018-05-05 12:20:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5374958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All good things come to an end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	one of these days

‘Does something feel different today?’ She says. Ladybug hears another beep, about a minute remains for her. They stand in a back alley, between the two of them about four minutes remain until they return to their civilian identities.

Chat Noir frowns, scratching the back of his head, ‘I thought it was just me. It felt like I was wearing a different fur.’

‘You’re not wearing—’

‘—committing to the part, milady.’ He swipes his hand—claw—at her playfully. This time his Miraculous beeps. He covers his eyes, ‘You should go, unless you wish your identity to be revealed. I can’t promise I won’t peak.’

‘Well, I can’t risk that, can I?’ She taps him gently on the nose, ‘Learn to keep your promises, kitty. Start by meeting me back here tonight. We need to figure this out.’ Ladybug dashes off down the alleyway, before yelling back, ‘Give me a five minute head start. I need to buy something.’

‘How cruel! Putting the cat in the bag!’ He yells back, eyes still covered. He hears her laughter fading away.

Adrien depowers shortly after, two or three minutes still remain until he can leave. Plagg floats close to Adrien’s face, his bright green eyes wide and hungry, ‘You look stupid.’

‘I feel stupid,’ Adrien confirms. The approximation of five minutes was nebulous.

‘Why are your eyes still closed? She’s gone. I want camembert.’

‘I’m trying to respect her wishes,’ Adrien admits, ‘Give it ten more seconds. I want to feel like I tried.’ Ten, nine, eight, seven… He opens his eyes, ‘Ok, close enough. That was at least three minutes.’

Plagg placates him, ’If it helps, the passage of time is utterly meaningless.’ Adrien just rolls his eyes, reaching into his shirt pocket for the cheese and tossing a piece to Plagg.

‘And to think I was just going to round up to five.’

Adrien ducks out of the alleyway and begins to make his way back to the limousine parked a few blocks away, ‘She’s right though—something did feel off.’ He pats his bag, ‘But you aren’t going to tell me why, are you?’ Plagg never gave away more than he needed to. Adrien could never tell if his kwami’s fickle nature is a result of cunning or lackadaisy.

‘Even If tell I you now, chaton,’ came the sleepy voice, ‘You won’t like the answer. In fact, you will most certainly hate me.’

-

Marinette screams when she finds out.

Sabine and Tom rush upstairs to find an overturned mannequin and a sobbing daughter. Out of the corner of her eye, Sabine thinks she sees a flash of red dart out the trapdoor, but her attention quickly snaps back to her daughter.

Marinette is crouched over, clenching her gut, as loud hiccupping gasps pushing their way out of her. Sabine wraps around her daughter and rocks her back and forth. She looks up at her husband for answers, for anything. He stays frozen in place, unsure, looking much smaller than usual.

They have not seen their daughter cry like this since the death of Sabine’s mother. Marinette had cried the whole week leading up to the funeral. On the floor of the bakery, on the floor of the cottage they had rented in Sainte-Marine as a getaway, on the beaches of Brittany as her Mom walked away with her own grief as far as the shoreline let her. Sabine saw her daughter’s grief as intrusive, unrepentant and honest—before children learned about the decorum of mourning—and she wishes she had that back. On the day of the funeral, Marinette does not cry. She is in sorrow, but her tears have all been shed. All that will remain, she tells Sabine, are soggy, but fond memories of din sum and stories from lǎo lao’s childhood.

She holds her daughter now, running her hands through her hair and whispering that whatever is ailing her will pass. Marinette clings to her like a lifeline.

-

Adrien is very still when he finds out.

He swallows and brings his hands down to his sides. They are white-knuckled.

‘How long have you known?’ He asks.

‘Have long have I known this was going to happen or how long have I known this was going to happen to you? Because those are two very different answers.’ Plagg keeps his distance, running wide, lazy arcs around the ceiling, ‘I told you you would hate me.’

Adrien cannot bring himself to respond.

Plagg continues on, ‘You should have let Ladybug tell you. The medicine goes down easier when you hear it from a cute girl.’ He comes to rest on the tip of the ceiling fan. Adrien can barely make out the kwami’s shape in the dark of the room.

He drops to the floor, the reality of the situation baring down on him, ’Well, I suppose curiosity killed the cat.’

‘No, bad luck does that,’ Plagg corrects him, ‘Curiosity simply saves you the trouble of finding that out later.’

He wants to punch something.

‘And what? Ladybug has known all this time?’ Adrien has a hard time imagining that. Plagg does not respond and silence fills the room. From his viewpoint, Adrien can make out a pair of bright green eyes focused on something beyond the window. Something he cannot see.

‘Now she does,’ Plagg says.

-

He sits on one the eaves overlooking the alleyway where he and Ladybug are supposed to rendez-vous. Chat Noir swings his feet absentmindedly, contemplating his newfound reality. It’s fine right now, the universe tells him he is Chat Noir and that’s that. What he fears the most is that slight shift, the new itch underneath his skin, when everything begins to become just a bit harder.

Someone taps his shoulder and he turns around to see her, standing above him, her silhouette contrasting against the artificial glow of the alleyway security lights.

‘A vision of beauty comes before me—an eleventh hour one at that.’ He extends her his hand and she accepts, settling herself down beside him. She lets him touch her more now. He has learned not to push, just to offer.

‘Sorry, I was—’ she searches for the right words ‘—occupied?’

‘Another top secret mission I’m not privy to, then?’ He sighs, laying back down on the roof. ‘First, you make me wait for you to leave, then wait for you to arrive.’ He grins at her back, waiting for a retort. She just hugs herself to closer her knees, chin resting on her forearms.

‘It’s been so long since then... two years? three?’ she says wistfully. Chat watches her wrestle with what she needs to tell him. He is glad Plagg told him first. This is not something he would ever want to burden her with.

‘I know,’ he admits.

She turns on him, her expression strained, ‘You know what?’

The sky overhead is a deep, cloudy purple, reflecting back the light of city on them. The evening is misty and cold, Chat thinks it might snow tomorrow. He reaches one hand up, trying to snatch what was taken from them.

‘We’re expiring.’

Ladybug’s shoulders collapse with relief. She presses the back of her thumbs to the back of her neck and begins massaging deep circles there. He feels a tinge of guilt.

‘I—Tikki said I should be the one. That your kwami might not tell you.’ Chat pulls himself back up to sit beside her. He wiggles his fingers in front of her, offering to take over her neck massage. She shoots him a caustic look.

He draws his hands back, ‘He told me—or rather, I made him tell me. I don’t think I’d be able to have this conversation right now otherwise.’ Of course, a part of Adrien is angry with Plagg, but more than anything, he is grateful. Rejection is so part and parcel of Plagg’s existence, Adrien wants to make sure his friend to understands.

‘You do seem quite calm,’ she sounds bemused, a little jealous.

‘Death does strange things to cats,’ he answers.

She turns around to face him, knees digging into the slats of the roof and hands reaching for purchase, ‘You’re overexaggerating. Don’t say that.’ She scolds. He takes her hand gently, rubbing his gloved fingers over her knuckles, beginning to hum. They sit for a moment.

‘I—’ she starts ’wait—are you humming Memories?’ She sounds incredulous.

‘Touch me—it’s so easy to leave me—’ He caterwauls, attempting his best Barbra Streisand impression, which is unsurprisingly terrible. He’s not big on Andrew Lloyd Webber, but it seems so appropriate. Ladybug smacks him on the arm, clearly not sharing the sentiment. They return to silence, both staring out across the alleyway, all the curtains on the windows are shut.

He decides to pose her a question, ‘Do you consider yourself both Ladybug and your civilian identity? Or do you see them as separate?’ He is curious.

Ladybug considers this, ‘Well, there is a freedom that comes with wearing a mask, obviously. I don’t know. Maybe few years ago I would have said they are different, out of insecurity and fear, I guess. But I like myself a lot better now. I see qualities in myself that were always there, maybe just pushed along a bit by Ladybug.’ She smiles mischievously, ‘And you, of course.’

Heat rises to his face and he has to look away. Ladybug will always know how to get him.

‘What are you worried about, minou?’ Her tone is playful, but the concern is genuine and Chat thinks that for all the romantic syrup he still craves, the unbridled trust and care between them is what he comes home to, ‘Will Chat Noir, the regular guy, who does regular guy things, not live face to another dawn?’

He has to laugh at that, wondering what she pictures him to be like outside of his costume.‘I don’t know,’ he answers honestly. He points to himself, ‘This is the regular guy.’

‘What a shame,’ she flicks his bell, ‘The world is going to be missing out on an experience then. You should do something about that.’

-

The next few months pass in a blur. Neither of their kwami know when, precisely, is the best time to stop.

Ladybug is more cautious than Chat Noir. Her powers are consuming, reality-altering after all. She is a like a surgeon, she tells him. Good at what she does until she is not: if she does not stop at the right moment, it costs lives.

At night, Plagg searches for his replacement. He creeps back to Adrien’s side like a guilty lover and they do not speak of it. Adrien suspects that his departure as Chat Noir is premature, as if one day the universe decided to shift but ended up regretting its decision. He mentions this to Plagg and the kwami, for all of his Delphic postulations, agrees.

‘But, you know,’ Plagg reminds him,‘that is the nature of bad luck.’

-

‘What about Hawk Moth?’

Marinette has asked Tikki this before. She bites through the piece of thread and sets her current project down on the table.

‘I don’t know.’ Tikki gives her the same answer.

‘We never found out who he was,’ Marinette rolls her chair away from her sewing table. ‘We just kind of fought whoever he sent our way. If we had looked harder, maybe less innocent people would have been akumatised.’ Marinette feels like she has only scratched the surface of something much deeper than herself.

Tikki dips in front of her, ‘He never pushed back, so you didn’t either.’

Marinette sighs,‘I think that makes me a pretty crappy Ladybug.’

Her kwami settles on her head, ‘Not at all. It just wasn’t your role.’

‘I’m the first playthrough of a video game,’ Marinette grouses,‘Like—like—everything appeared straightforward and obvious, but you just miss all the signs that pointed to something more.’

Tikki peaks down at her, giving her a weak smile, ‘That’s not necessarily a bad thing.’

**Author's Note:**

> I've been sitting on this for a week or so now, so I figured it'd just be better to divide it up. I have a second part to this that's going to be substantially shorter.


End file.
